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Mr. Worthington : Is my hon. Friend aware of the position in East Kilbride, where tenants must pay £1 extra a week on their rents because of the low number of houses which the district council controls?
Mr. Cook : I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that information, which fortifies my case. I will strongly support new clause 2 because it entrenches the right of individual tenants--not on a majority ballot--to choose from a full range of options, including the district council.
It will not be enough for the Minister of State to respond to our anxieties by accepting the bolthole offered by his hon. Friend the Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Porter) that the district council option is not ruled out. The massive majority of the tenants have chosen the district council option. By the Minister's own admission, 50 per cent. chose the district council while only 12 per cent. chose any other landlord.
It is not enough to respond to that by saying that the Government have not ruled out the district council option. The Minister of State is asking Parliament to pass the Bill tonight. He cannot ask us to do that while he is saying that the Government retain an open mind about what they will do when the new powers have been enacted. He must tell the House what he intends to do with his powers. More important, he owes it to tenants to tell them what to do, because they want to know now, not three years hence.
If the Minister of State accepts that proposition, it will offer him a blessed release from the discomfort that has been caused by the position that he has been asked to defend. The Minister of State affects a style that has a certain gravitas. The position that he is being asked to defend threatens to undermine that rhetorical style. It is impossible for the Minister of State to speak with dignity when he is committed to saying that the Government are committed to tenants' choice but they have not yet made up their mind on whether they will let tenants choose the landlord they want. That position is a farce. It has neither gravitas nor dignity. The Minister should abandon it. If he does not, hon. Members should vote it down. 6.30 pm
Mr. Henry McLeish (Fife, Central) : I am pleased to participate in the debate, and I warmly welcome the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook). From meetings with the Minister of State at Dover house and from our proceedings in Committee it is quite obvious that he suffers discomfort, partly because he must know that he cannot offer choice to the tenants of the five new towns when their major aspirations are security and an accountable landlord that will take care of their long- term interests. He clearly cannot be talking about choice if that major option is ruled out.
It is nearly 50 years since the New Towns Act 1946 came into being as one of the most significant regional
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policy initiatives of the first post-war Labour Government. It is a tragedy that, in the next two or three years, that achievement will be turned into the implementation of this measure, which is a curious combination of ideology, incompetence, investment squandering, irrelevance and, more important when we discuss housing, insensitivity. The key issue is that the Government will not allow the tenants of Scotland's five new towns to exercise a judgment that will allow them, if they wish, to opt for the district council as a preferred landlord. Hon. Members have said that this matter is not political ; it is technical, it is common sense and it is logical. If we want to maximise choice, we maximise options. However, the key has been excluded.The reason why the Government languish in the polls is that they listen to no one about anything. The situation cannot be defended. Scots in new towns want a choice. The debate is a travesty. People in Scotland, including hon. Members from the five new towns, support the district council option, but one significant group have isolated themselves--Conservative Members. The Secretary of State, unlike the Under-Secretary of State, should surely want some avenues to try to improve his party's electoral prospects among one tenth of the population of Scotland. That is how many people will be affected by our decisions this evening.
I shall be charitable because my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston said that he had some feeling for the Minister of State's plight. Hansard will possibly record the silences. I invite the Minister to intervene and tell the Scots without equivocation why the Government will not allow tenants to select the district council in the winding-up period, if that is one option on offer to them. Will the Minister of State respond to that challenge so that we can have it on the official record that that is the Government's unequivocal position? I want to be charitable, so I shall ask again--
Mr. John McAllion (Dundee, East) : The Minister of State may be sleeping.
Mr. McLeish : My hon. Friend is suggesting that the Minister of State is nodding off.
The Government have no case. It is simply an exercise in politics, when we should be putting tenants' interests high on our political agenda.
If this were only political malice, it would be bad enough, but we have confusion as well. In Committee, in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mrs. Fyfe), the Minister of State said :
"If the hon. Lady will allow me to continue, I shall come to that.
The second important point to emerge from the report was that only 30 per cent. of tenants want to make a choice now ; four fifths would prefer to choose at wind-up. That seems to be a more appropriate time at which to address the choice."
Later in the same debate, he said :
"Had the hon. Gentleman been here at the beginning, he would have heard me say that there was no justification for transferring from one public authority to another. The role of Scottish Homes is to become the residual landlord of those houses that are not transferred elsewhere in the interim."--[ Official Report, First Scottish Standing Committee, 6 March 1990, c. 518-31.]
The Government have not completely closed the door. In the process between now and the wind-up, district councils will not be an option and anything that is left will go to Scottish Homes. That defies logic--it cannot work. In the Minister of State's rantings, there is no prospect of the district council being a serious option in the run-up to
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the wind-up or post wind-up. The Minister of State is deceiving the Scottish people on a scale previously not seen, even under the standards of the present Government. Why is that? The powerful combination of confusion and ideology will mean that tenants in Glenrothes and the other four new towns will look upon the Government and merely shrug their shoulders and say, "Fifteen per cent. in the opinion polls is probably far too generous."Parliament's time can often be tragically wasted. This issue unites everyone in a common cause to provide choice to tenants who live in some of the most successful post-war public sector initiatives. I make a final appeal to the Minister of State. He should put aside his confusion, step back from ideology and do the things that matter to people. If Parliament is to mean anything, we should, as far as possible, reflect tenants' wishes and those of the five new town representatives who are closer to the public in Scotland than are the present Government, and certainly the Minister of State.
Mr. Mike Watson (Glasgow, Central) : There have been several high- standard contributions to the debate. In some respects one of the most interesting speeches was by the hon. Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Porter), who failed miserably to establish his Scottish credentials but none the less made some interesting comments on the proposals. It might have been useful if he had been a member of the Standing Committee. The Government had to pull in five hon. Members representing English constituencies, and the hon. Member for Wirral, South was not one of them. Perhaps now that we have heard his view, having looked at one of the aspects of the Bill in detail, it is obvious why he was not a member of the Committee. None the less, his comments were interesting and have been expanded in great detail and with great force by my hon. Friends who represent the new towns. It is a matter of hypocrisy and double standards for the Minister of State and the Secretary of State to come to the House with proposals that are so restrictive of tenants' choice. Their double standards take two forms. First, they have championed choice. They have built many pieces of legislation on choice--choice for consumers, patients, parents and tenants in other aspects of their right to buy local authority houses. That choice is now being significantly narrowed, specifically to exclude the one choice that the majority of tenants have designated.
The second double standard was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Cunninghame, South (Mr. Lambie)--the different way in which legislation is framed for Scottish tenants and tenants south of the border. It is disgraceful that English tenants can still opt for their district councils when new towns are wound up, while that facility is not to be offered to Scots.
The Government should have learnt something from the painful lesson that emerged from the Budget statement last month, when different treatment between Scotland and England rebounded on them with force. Indeed, I have discovered in recent days that there is to be another double standard between Scotland and England, this time in relation to Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise and the way in which complaints relating to them are to be handled. At present, the Training Agency has responsibility for dealing with complaints applying to training, and individuals can go to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration with their complaints. I hear that it is
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being proposed through a back-door method--I say that because I have only seen a copy of a letter dealing with this matter--that that right should be removed and that it should not be possible for complaints to be referred to the commissioner under Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise or any of the local enterprise committees in Scotland.In England and Wales, where the Training Agency continues to have responsibility for training, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration will still be able to deal with complaints which go through the agency.
The Government, including the Scottish Office, are treating Scotland in a second-class way, and that exemplifies the double standards that the Government are applying in this and other legislation. The people of Scotland will note this trend, as they will note the disgraceful restriction on tenants' choice that this measure proposes.
Mr. Sillars : We have listened with interest to the five excellent speeches that have been made by hon. Members who represent new towns in Scotland. Our main anxiety is about the Minister's statement that the final choice is not ruled out. It is not just that he has not ruled it in. Our fear is that in due course a Government spokesman will say, "We did not make any such promise. Nowhere can you find that promise in black and white." That is our major anxiety and it is disreputable for the Minister to use such weasel words as "We have not ruled it out."
Throughout the debate, the hon. Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Porter) has been the only English Member present. He entered the Chamber willing and happy to support the Government, but as he listened to the debate, he saw the logic, fairness and principle of our argument, and his speech was in support of the Opposition. Whether in due course his vote will follow his speech is a matter for him.
The point that the hon. Gentleman made will not be missed, because our proceedings are televised. The Government Benches have been empty for the debate, while a clear case on behalf of the tenants of Scottish new towns has been made by Opposition Members. In other words, the only English Tory who came to listen became convinced of the wisdom of our case. Tragically, when a Division takes place, all those English Tories who did not hear the argument will vote for the Government.
6.45 pm
Mr. Lang : The debate has taken a predictable course. I suppose that I should be grateful for the sympathy offered by Opposition Members and their avowed conversion to the principle of choice and diversification in housing. I would express such a view if I found it remotely credible, but I have not forgotten how Opposition Members fought tooth and nail when we sought to introduce choice and tenants' rights into Scottish housing. The Opposition are, as they have always been, believers in the municipalisation of housing and the ownership of housing by district councils, and they have always resisted private housing.
Mr. Norman Hogg : The Minister talks about tenants' choice. That worries me, because he is an authority on aggressive paternalism. If that is what he is giving us, he
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should be careful about talking of choice and the right to buy in the context of new towns because those tenants always had the right to buy their houses.Mr. Lang : I have yet to be persuaded that Labour Members have changed the policy attitude that they adopted when we came to office in 1979, which was to resist our proposals to introduce the right to buy for council house tenants. Opposition Members have spoken of large turn-outs at meetings and of concern and anxiety in new towns about our proposals for housing, and it is no wonder that there is that anxiety because Opposition Members are stirring up fears about the future. It is their statements which are raising those doubts. We want to see diversification in housing. We want more housing associations and other forms of rented tenure as well as more private ownership. That ties in with the wishes of tenants. Opposition protestations of a similar commitment to diversification carry no conviction with my hon. Friends and me.
Opposition Members still seek the option of district council transfer as a means to press that option alone. If that were to happen, tenants would lapse back into the old monopolistic straitjacket of a public sector landlord, and all our work in eliminating uniformity would have been to no avail.
Mr. Robin Cook : Leaving aside for a moment the Minister's suspicions about the Opposition's motivation, is he aware that one reason why it would be impossible to do as he alleges is the fact that district councils themselves are no longer seeking that course? A unanimous feature of the five districts representing new towns is their statement, "Leave it to the tenants to choose, but put us on the menu of choice."
Mr. Lang : My impression from all my meetings with SLANT, Scottish Local Authorities with New Towns--the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) was present at those meetings--has been of that there is a substantial ambition that local district councils should take over that housing.
Mr. Ingram rose --
Mr. Lang : I will not give way. I promise to deal later with the points that the hon. Gentleman made.
Mr. Norman Hogg : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I understood that we were engaged on what are described as the remaining stages of the Bill and that these proceedings are not time-limited. The Minister therefore has every opportunity to reply to our points. I assure him that we are prepared to sit here for as long as he is willing to address us.
Mr. Lang : I am anxious to reply to the points raised in the debate and I have before me a considerable number of notes.
The hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington) said that all English new towns had the right to opt for the district council, and the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars) also seemed to favour the English solution to Scotland's problems--a course that he is not normally accustomed to follow.
In fact, English new towns do not have that right. The power in England was introduced in the Housing Act
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1988, by which time only four remained out of the 19 corporations originally set up in England. Before that change, the Commission for the New Towns was the body available, as a residuary body, to take over housing. Scotland does not have a commission for new towns. We did not regard that as a desirable body to set up. We have Scottish Homes, and that body is available to take over corporation houses. There is no comparable body in England. Had there been such a body, the approach adopted in England might have been different. I believe that Scottish Homes is a responsible landlord and will operate the same high standards as the corporations. It is still in its early days, and although it may be suffering from the fact that it is still an unknown quantity, I am confident that tenants need have no cause for concern about the future with Scottish Homes.Mr. McLeish : Why will the Minister not allow the district council to become part of the menu offered to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook)?
Mr. Lang : The hon. Gentleman should examine the booklet that we circulated to the new town local authorities, in which we made it clear that, among the options that we would consider at the appropriate time during wind-up, were housing associations, housing co-operatives, district councils and other landlords. In that booklet we also made it clear that, at the end of wind-up, the residuary body for houses which did not go to other destinations would be Scottish Homes.
The hon. Gentleman quoted me as saying that at this stage there was no sense in transferring from one public body to another, but at this stage in the process the Government--who in any case believe that there should be not an increase but a reduction in the amount of public housing--could achieve nothing by transferring housing from the development corporation to the district council. Towards the end of wind-up will be the time to consider the appropriate choice.
Mr. Barry Porter : I am genuinely puzzled. It seems that, during the wind-up period, the option to transfer to a district council does not exist, and that on wind-up those who have not transferred to something else will go to Scottish Homes. Scottish Homes may or may not be a wonderful thing, and district councils may or may not be dreadful things, but at what point do the tenants have the option of going to the appropriate place? I do not understand.
Mr. Lang : I was about to come to that. My hon. Friend asked me earlier to confirm that the option of transfer to the district council had not been ruled out, and I am happy to do so, but now is not the right moment at which to decide that that will be a firm option. We have made it clear that the options will be addressed and decided during wind-up, which will start in the first new towns--East Kilbride and Glenrothes--next year and run for a further three years. The winding up of the last of the five new towns--Irvine, in 1996--will not finish until just before the end of the century, by which time the hon. Member for Cunninghame, South (Mr. Lambie) will be a venerable individual. It would be wrong for us now to pre -empt the
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option, to foreclose on the choices and to make decisions which might bear no relation to the housing circumstances prevailing at that time.Mr. George Foulkes (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley) : Like the hon. Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Porter), I was not a member of the Standing Committee, and I am equally puzzled. No one today has urged the Government to take the course they are taking--that of ruling out the opportunity for tenants to choose a district council as their landlord. What bodies or individuals in Scotland have urged that course on the Government?
Mr. Lang : The Government do not form their policies in response to urgings from people--we prepare our policies and put them to the electorate. The electorate returned a Conservative Government at the last election. Obviously, people support the policies that we pursue, including our housing policies. We are pursuing a policy that we believe is right and in the best interests of new town residents.
Mr. Foulkes : Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Lang : No, I have many other points to answer.
The hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie asserted that in England all the housing went to district councils, but that is not so--housing in Basildon is still managed by the Commission for the New Towns and in Runcorn the district council was not prepared to take on the housing, so the Government had to retrieve the situation there and ensure that the needs of tenants were met. In Scotland, Scottish Homes can continue to provide secure tenancies and a high quality of service for existing development corporation tenants.
The hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie talked of tenants' right to choose where they wished to live. Nothing in our proposals would affect in any way the rights of secure tenants to continue to live in the houses that they currently occupy. Sections 45 to 56 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 govern security of tenure, and our proposals do not change those rights. If the hon. Gentleman is worried about those who are now without houses in the new towns--a perfectly legitimate concern--I should point out that we are responding by spending some £40 million on Scottish new town housing in 1991-92, including £17 million in East Kilbride where, I acknowledge, there are particular problems. More than 1,400 completions have taken place since I lifted the moratorium on general needs house building a couple of years ago, and 4,300 public and private sector houses are being built in the new towns.
The hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish) said that one tenth of Scottish people were affected by the Government's decision on new town housing. The hon. Gentleman's sums are somewhat out of kilter. The new towns accounted for 5 per cent. of the Scottish population, but for only 4.1 per cent. of the Scottish public sector tenanted stock as at the end of last year. Taking all Scottish housing stock together, fewer than 1.5 per cent. of the Scottish population are new town development corporation tenants, and that figure is falling every day as a further 11 houses per day are bought by sitting tenants.
Opposition Members have cited various figures culled from surveys in an attempt to prove an overwhelming demand among tenants to move to district councils from development corporations, but insofar as any demand is
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evident, it is in the other direction. If we examine the number of applications from development corporation tenants to move to local district councils, we find that about 40 times as many district council tenants want to do the opposite. For example, in Irvine, three development corporation tenants have applied to go to Cunninghame district council, but 184 have applied to go in the opposite direction.Mr. Worthington : If so few tenants want to go to the district council, why cannot that simply be agreed? If there are a great many, why cannot it be agreed as a democratic choice? Either way, the Minister is being awkward.
Mr. Lang : It can be agreed, but now is not the right time to make the decision. The time for that is when wind-up ends and the development corporations approach the point of dissolution. From the surveys that have been carried out, it is evident that tenants want more information as they do not know what options are available to them or what they want to do. As one survey pointed out, only 30 per cent. of district council tenants want to make a choice now. Four fifths of development corporation tenants want to choose at wind-up, which is the right time to choose. Some 50 per cent. of people currently think that they would choose to move to district councils. That is not the ringing endorsement of district councils that the hon. Member for Livingston seems to think it, as some 38 per cent. of tenants--more than a third--say that they do not know what their choice would be, and if they made their choice now, fewer than one fifth would choose the district council.
The number one choice--to use the phrase of the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie--is not the district council but home ownership. That is the strong trend emerging through the development corporations. Some 40 per cent. of existing tenants are interested in home ownership, two thirds are actively considering it and three quarters of the rest expect to consider it within the next five years. That is where the central thrust is in new town housing, and I believe that it is a desirable trend.
Mr. Ingram : Will the Minister come to my constituency? I will pay for a meeting and arrange for him to deliver that argument to the vast numbers of people who will turn up. Let him listen to what the residents of the new towns have to say. If they say what we are saying, will he then change his mind?
Mr. Lang : I hope to have many opportunities to visit East Kilbride again. Substantial economic success has been achieved there and I have visited both industrial and housing developments. There will be plenty of opportunities for me to assess, in various ways, the views of the residents.
The hon. Member for East Kilbride (Mr. Ingram) raised a number of points relating to new clause 8. The, wording is similar to the Government's, but it seeks to introduce a number of additional provisions, which we debated in Committee but which the hon. Gentleman seeks to re-air. The first proposal relates to an audit. An economic audit of the industrial assets of the towns takes place every year and is summarised regularly in the annual reports of the corporations. It would be a waste of resources, time and effort to repeat the exercise.
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We want to carry out an environmental audit to identify those areas in the new towns which are non-productive andnon-revenue-earning and which in due course will need to find a new owner. That does not need legislation--it is an administrative matter. East Kilbride and Glenrothes are preparing to proceed at an early stage.
As for making the findings available, I should like that to be done if possible. That would be worth while. However, commercial confidentiality may be involved in certain cases. To the extent that that could limit the availability of information, I am inhibited from giving an unqualified undertaking. However, as complete a version as possible of the report will be made available.
7 pm
As for local authority investment in local development companies, development corporations are not inhibited from investing in local development companies. Legislation is not needed. Why should the Government seek to compel development corporations or district councils to invest in local development companies? The Government ought to be neutral. However, there is no reason why those bodies should not seek to invest in local development companies. It might be in the interests of a local development company to seek that investment, but it is for the company to take that decision. I take issue with several elements in the proposal that there should be consultation on disposals. The most important is the sheer impracticality of the proposal. Consultation would be required every time that a development corporation intended to dispose of some of its assets or liabilities. Under such an arrangement, everyone would become bogged down in the process of consultation and response. Even without wind-up, the development corporations are disposing of properties. We are contemplating an intensification of that process. However, I will consider whether the wind-up order might properly contain a provision for enhanced consultation.
I see no merit in transferring vacant houses to district councils. An appropriate part of the management of housing stock is to provide for a certain number of vacant houses to allow for modernisation and other factors. The development corporations have an excellent record on the efficient management of their housing stock. The average of empty properties is less than 2 per cent., compared with about 6 per cent. in district councils.
The hon. Member for Livingston referred to industrial promotion and to other aspects which he believed were contrary to the commercially driven momentum of local development companies. He was right to identify that aspect, but we have addressed the point. I referred to this in Committee when I made it clear that any local development company which succeeded in securing a contract to take over commercial assets and the opportunity further to develop them in new town areas would also be obliged to enter into a contract for a period of years with Scottish Enterprise to fulfil precisely those non-commercial roles which would be in the interests of the Scottish economy and of the new towns--such as industrial promotion, the provision of specific factory requirements for inward investment cases and the provision of commercially unattractive small industrial start-up workshops.
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Far from seeking to maximise the return to the taxpayer, the Government's purpose is to maintain the existing momentum in the new towns. It would be easy to wind up the new towns and walk away leaving nothing, but we believe that the economic momentum and economic achievements of the new towns are such that we should seek to preserve that momentum and enhance it in the period ahead. The Scottish new towns have been, and will continue to be, powerful engines of social and economic change. They have been an almost unqualified success story, and the changes that they have achieved are fundamental and lasting. Our economic policies are informed by justifiable pride in the maturity of the new towns and their ability to make their own way in the world. New problems and different economic challenges elsewhere should properly command our concern and commitment. The new clause is a necessary provision to ensure that the new towns can be wound up and that the future economic and social well- being of those areas is maintained. I commend the new clause to the House.Question put, That the clause be read a Second time :
The House divided : Ayes 141, Noes 81.
Division No. 182] [7.04 pm
AYES
Alexander, Richard
Alison, Rt Hon Michael
Amess, David
Amos, Alan
Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)
Ashby, David
Atkins, Robert
Atkinson, David
Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)
Bellingham, Henry
Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Boscawen, Hon Robert
Boswell, Tim
Bowis, John
Brandon-Bravo, Martin
Brazier, Julian
Brooke, Rt Hon Peter
Browne, John (Winchester)
Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)
Buck, Sir Antony
Burns, Simon
Burt, Alistair
Butler, Chris
Carlisle, John, (Luton N)
Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Carrington, Matthew
Cash, William
Chapman, Sydney
Chope, Christopher
Clark, Hon Alan (Plym'th S'n)
Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)
Colvin, Michael
Coombs, Simon (Swindon)
Cope, Rt Hon John
Cran, James
Davis, David (Boothferry)
Dorrell, Stephen
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Dunn, Bob
Durant, Tony
Emery, Sir Peter
Evennett, David
Fallon, Michael
Favell, Tony
Fenner, Dame Peggy
Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey
Fookes, Dame Janet
Forth, Eric
Garel-Jones, Tristan
Gill, Christopher
Glyn, Dr Sir Alan
Goodlad, Alastair
Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles
Gorman, Mrs Teresa
Gow, Ian
Greenway, John (Ryedale)
Gregory, Conal
Hague, William
Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)
Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)
Harris, David
Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney
Hayward, Robert
Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.
Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)
Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)
Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas
Irvine, Michael
Jack, Michael
Key, Robert
Kilfedder, James
King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)
Knapman, Roger
Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)
Lang, Ian
Lawrence, Ivan
Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)
Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)
Lightbown, David
Lilley, Peter
Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)
Lord, Michael
Luce, Rt Hon Richard
Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas
MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)
Maclean, David
McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael
Mans, Keith
Marland, Paul
Marshall, Michael (Arundel)
Martin, David (Portsmouth S)
Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)
Monro, Sir Hector
Morrison, Sir Charles
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